Wavemaker Novel Planning and Writing Software.

We’re celebrating the release of Steelheart, my new novel! It’s out this week. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can read up on the book here, listen to the first five chapters of the audiobook here, and watch the trailer here. Please consider going to your retailer of choice and looking at th ...

A few years back, I wrote an essay on creating magic systems that I titled Sanderson's First Law. It had to do with the nature of foreshadowing as it relates to solving problems with magic. In that essay, I implied that I had other "laws" for magic systems that I'd someday ta ...

Introduction I like magic systems. That's probably evident to those of you who have read my work. A solid, interesting and innovative system of magic in a book is something that really appeals to me. True, characters are what make a story narratively powerful—but magic is a large part of wh ...

An index page listing Books on Trope content. We here at TV Tropes are not the first to collect tropes and try to put them in some semblance of order. If you …

I am working on developing a character who is a martial artist with background in ballet and gymnastics. Most of her fighting would be street-level, against gangs and stuff. But she's also very feminine and I'm kind of thinking dresses like a hipster. I know lots of films and comics portray female fighters in very impractical clothing. But what kind of feminine clothes could someone actually get away with wearing in a fight? Would a short skirt and leggings work? What about shoes and tops?

When we think of novels, of newspapers and blogs, we think of words. We easily forget the little suggestions pushed in between: the…

Distraction-free text editor for Mac, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS.

A fantasy name generator for every fantasy character. From Chinese to Viking and from dragon to werewolf, I have a fantasy name generator for all your needs.